Something completely different today. The last few days I have written about my old business, and the factors that drove me out of it. In this short post I want to tell you a little bit more about myself, the things that interest me. It’s not really relevant to the rest of this site and what I am hoping to achieve with it, but for those who want a little light-hearted reading about who I am, read on!
If I was pushed to say what is thing that interests me most in life, I would have to say travelling. I started properly (i.e. rucksack over the shoulder and guide book in hand) back in 1984 at the tender age of 21. Although I’m sure it’s difficult to believe today, but generally in those days most people my age didn’t go in for solo travelling around Europe or further afield. Yes, you would meet a few people especially in the summer, but nothing like the amount of young people on the road today. Most of my contemparies were content with 2 weeks in Majorca or a Greek island but that was it.
Whilst not averse to sitting on a beach and getting pleasantly drunk at night, I didn’t want to waste a precious holiday doing that every single day. I preferred to select a part of Europe, and then travel there by train. It was great to meet other people – fellow travellers from other parts of the world as well as interesting locals. Some great friendships were made that way that still last to this day. I’ll write a separate post later with my travelling experiences in greater detail.
Coupled with the interest in travelling, I was always interested in speaking foreign languages. At the moment I speak German fairly fluently, can get by in Spanish and French, and as I’m shortly emigrating to Turkey – guess which language I’m learning next? Actually I can get by pretty well in Turkish at the moment, as long as the subject doesn’t get too detailed! In the past I have also been able to get by in Russian, Hungarian and Italian when I have been to those countries but it’s been a while now…
At home I enjoy doing DIY projects, especially outside in the garden. I designed and landscaped our garden about 8-9 years ago building a pond, stream, waterfall and a wooden summer house amongst other things. Since I got the pond, well a pond isn’t much use without fish, so I have developed a good interest in koi carp amongst others.
Other things I enjoy are stamp collecting, a hobby I started as a 7 year old child which I have never quite been able to give up. What is interesting about stamps (I collect only Europe between 1914 and 1945) is that you can follow a lot of the history of a country or region from its stamps. History is another thing that fascinates me, it is interesting debating what happened and why. And of course there are never right or wrong answers, only opinions. For example I remember sitting an exam about 30 years ago. The first question was “Explain why Serbia was responsible for starting the First World War”, the second question “Explain why Serbia was NOT responsible for starting the First World War”! Fascinating stuff and a good way to develop debating skills.
I enjoy learning new things on the computer! Seriously I do, a lot of people think that is a bit “geekish” but I disagree. Six months ago I honestly had no idea what a blog was, 3 months ago I had no idea how to create one. I visited blogs of course, but I just thought they were normal web sites. Until a few weeks ago I had never used Microsoft FrontPage or FTP software to upload files from my PC to my web site! It’s not as if I’m a computer Luddite either, I first went online in 1994 using a Psion Series 3 (anyone remember those), a dial up modem and a Compuserve account. What happened to Compuserve by the way? I even had an email address back in 1994, it was something weird like 12345678,[email protected]…..how things have changed.
Finally, I do enjoy electronic gadgets such as PDAs and mobile phones. I just love the idea of being able to carry all that information around with you, even if most of it is completely unnecessary. For the geeks, my current PDA is a HP4700 which although it is over 2 years old, I just love the screen quality. My mobile phone is a Nokia N95, fantastic phone and camera but terrible as a PDA. I was tempted, briefly, by the Iphone but what stopped me was not being able to add more programs to it. Other than that the Iphone is a work of art!
With the honourable exception of cricket I’m not that much into sports these days. I used to love football but here in England the huge amounts of money in the game have completely ruined it. It’s just not that interesting to watch anymore, look at the pathetic displays by the England team over the last 10 years. But I do enjoy test cricket. Yes I know, England have declined in the last 2 years, but quite honestly cricket is not such a partisan game as football. I can appreciate great players regardless of their nationality. For example, to show you how sad I am 🙂 I spent part of my Sunday today watching a match between Bangladesh and South Africa and thouroughly enjoyed it!
So that’s a little bit more about the person behind this web site. I’ll share more with you as the next few weeks unfold.